Students with disabilities challenged by campus return

After a two and a half year medical leave following her diagnosis of a chronic illness while attending a university on the east coast, Catherine Ames’ first experience as a USC student took place from her laptop —  her travel limited to USC’s Student Health Center and trips to Dulce with her mom.

But for Ames, the remoteness prevailed by bringing more “good than bad.” Although the virtual setting of classes hindered connections with her peers and resulted in a disconnect to the University, it also allowed Ames to completely accommodate her needs as an immunocompromised student with a disability by turning her camera off, muting herself, laying down when she felt overtired, taking notes from a recorded lecture and having all her medications nearby — all of which helped her transition back into academic life. 

Ames, a junior majoring in law, history and culture, said that having a disability, being neurodiverse and/or chronically ill, packing medical supplies of medications and treatments can require a lot of planning and cause a lot of anxiety. However, with the University’s announcement in mid-February detailing their plans to transition to in-person learning for the 2021-22 school year, Ames was left with many unanswered questions including who would be responsible for enforcing mask mandates.

“Is it on me as a student to advocate for myself and speak up? … Who will step up for me? Will the professor be on my side?” Ames said. “Will people who are disabled, chronically ill or neurodiverse lose educational time because it’s unsafe for us to go to class? … Will we now have a gap compared to our able-bodied students?” 

Contracting the coronavirus four weeks after getting fully vaccinated, Ames said she understands the illness’ reality and hopes others on campus remember that activities have yet to return to normal. For Ames, that means taking precautions as if everyone is unvaccinated to put her health first and foremost.

“It’s really difficult for someone like me who’s immunocompromised and disabled and is managing their health every minute of every day to be able to walk into a classroom and feel safe that everyone is vaccinated and wearing a mask,” Ames said. 

Kimi Zamora, co-director of the Student Accessibility Assembly, said she is also concerned about the risk the coronavirus poses to students with disabilities if no hybrid option is set in place to allow them to attend classes remotely.

“[The Delta variant] poses a big risk because if a student with a disability gets infected — whether they have the vaccine or not — the severity of the effects will be a lot greater, and their life would be at risk,” said Zamora, a senior majoring in intelligence and cyber operations. “To the average student, you get sick, most likely you’re not going to be hospitalized, the risk is a lot less.”

Zamora also said SAA will hold their internal meetings remotely to protect their members, particularly as they could not ethically support students with disabilities to meet in a full capacity room during a pandemic. Access to live interpreters and closed captioning during their remote meetings made a big difference to many members, she said.

During the pandemic, the Office of Student Accessibility Services worked with students to ensure accessibility and support. In a statement to the Daily Trojan, OSAS said they scheduled meetings with students who asked for accommodations prior to returning to campus. 

“There were many lessons that we learned during the pandemic on helping better accommodate students at USC,” OSAS said in the statement. “As we know, students all have different accommodation needs, learning styles and being remote taught us new strategies to help students get what they needed. We are taking what we learned and applying it to in-person classes, helping students succeed at the university.”

Senior Sara Zuluaga Sierra, co-director of SAA, said, in addition to remote learning providing further health precautions, it also allowed her to watch recordings of classes and take notes when she had a flare up during the spring semester. According to Zuluaga Sierra, who majors in non-governmental organizations and social change, students with disabilities at USC and other universities have called for online options as an accommodation long before the pandemic transitioned the country’s school system online. Moving into increased in-person learning, online options are requests they continue to make.

“I understand that [USC] is like a business and needs to think of the financial repercussions for their actions,” Zuluaga Sierra said. “In this case, I’m talking about disabled people are risking at the benefit of other able bodied people getting to function ‘normally.’” 

Disclaimer: Catherine Ames is an opinion columnist for the Daily Trojan.